Meet Our Board

Public Wise brings together an experienced group of individuals from the public sector, research and organizing.

Andy Bernstein

Executive Director

Headcount

Headshot of Andy Bernstein

Andy Bernstein helped found HeadCount in 2004, and became its executive director in the Spring of 2008.

Under his leadership, the organization has registered over 650,000 voters, forged alliances with hundreds of musicians and entertainers, and produced dozens of highly-successful events and initiatives.

He has been a featured speaker at the South by Southwest music conference, and appeared as an expert commentator on ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and several other television networks. He also oversaw production of  public service announcements starring Jay-Z, Dave Matthews, members of the Grateful Dead and the boy band Brockhampton, the most recent of which was distributed by the Ad Council.

Andy was the architect behind “The Bridge Session,” a 2012 concert and webcast that brought together The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir with members of The National for the first time. Later, they recorded an album together.

Prior to creating HeadCount, Andy was best known in the music community as an author of “The Pharmer’s Almanac”, a guide to the band Phish that sold over 70,000 copies. He also worked in sports for over a decade, serving as media editor of Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal, and later as Vice President of U.S. Corporate Development at the technology company Kangaroo TV, A 1994 graduate of Brown University.

Bernstein resides in a slope-side condominium at the Mountain Creek ski resort, not far from New York City. His pastime is posting harrowing GoPro videos of his ski adventures on social media.